LIV Student Porto – Polo Universitário, this is the name of the project that marks the entry of Valeo in Portugal, and which was officially inaugurated this week.
This new student residence is located in the university area of Porto, next to the metro, and has 470 beds spread over 423 rooms, in a 16-storey building with four types of accommodation - single or double studio and single or double room in an apartment shared, all with private bathroom, as well as rooms and facilities adapted for people with reduced mobility.
The residence will be managed by the Valeo Management branch of Valeo Groupe.
Its inauguration was attended by representatives of the companies participating in this project, namely Bankinter, represented by Alberto Ramos, Country Manager of Bankinter Portugal and Iñigo Guerra, General Manager of Bankinter Investment; Plenium Partners, by Juan Ignacio Martí Junco and Iñigo Gortazar, and the General Director of Grupo Valeo for the Iberian Peninsula, Ignacio Bilbao.
The LIV Student brand seeks to «develop a concept capable of offering residents a comprehensive experience with all services, allowing them to be fully focused on making the most of their years of training», reads the statement.
This venture is just one of several that the Spanish venture capital fund VStudent (Bankinter VALEO Groupe and Plenium Partners) currently has in its portfolio. It currently has 5 projects under development, with a total of more than 2,800 beds, in cities such as Seville, Barcelona and Granada, in addition to Porto.
In March of this year, the Porto City Council announced the construction of this residence and another in the Amial area, next to the Circunvalação road, near Hospital de São João, which will be LIV Porto-The Street. It will have 816 accommodation units and 856 beds, and should open in 2022.
It should be remembered that in 2019 Valeo announced that it would invest between 300 and 400 million euros in the Iberian Peninsula, in the construction of 10 new student residences, starting precisely in Porto.
At the time, the company announced its interest in "great university cities", and Lisbon is included in that list, along with Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Seville or Bilbao.
The investment will be carried out in partnership with Bankinter, the banking entity with which it established an alliance last year, creating a fund for private banking clients, which should attract 150 million euros, to which is added the financial leverage.